Unfortunate

 

IT IS truly unfortunate that some elements in the country are still trying to exploit politically the state of Emergency imposed in India in 1975. Even as the mature elements are insisting that that was one hard lesson India learned, there still are elements that are trying to accuse the current Government of imposing an undeclared Emergency in the country. This is nothing but a brazen abuse of political freedom the larger Indian society enjoys only to malign the Narendra Modi Government by alleging that it is abusing fundamental rights of the people. These tendencies need to be curbed urgently in larger national interest.

 

The thrust of these negative tendencies and elements is that the Modi Government is abusing national institutions and agencies in order to perpetuate its grip on power. One of the latest accusations by these elements is that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is using the Election Commission of India (ECI) to ensure its electoral victories -- like it allegedly did in Maharashtra where it got an unprecedented majority in the last legislative elections. Another allegation has been that the Modi Government is using various enforcement agencies to harass the Opposition parties by slapping upon them various false cases. None of these allegations makes any sense on the ground of reality. Yet, the negative elements refuse to mend their ways. Congress leader Mr. Rahul Gandhi and his party are currently engaged in accusing the Election Commission of helping the BJP in winning the Maharashtra legislative elections by manipulating voting machines. The Election Commission has stated officially time and again that the allegations being levelled by Mr. Rahul Gandhi are totally baseless and the EC is willing to meet with the Congress leader and clear his misunderstanding. This offer has come on several occasions in the past some months. Yet, Mr. Rahul Gandhi has shown no inclination to meet with the officials of the Election Commission and sort out his complaints. And now to top it all, the Congress party has accused the Modi Government of having imposed on the country an “undeclared Emergency”.

 

If that were the reality, Mr. Rahul Gandhi would never have been able to make such brazen and thoughtless allegations against the Government and Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi. However, this positive dimension of the Modi Government does not get noticed by the Opposition camp and especially by Mr. Rahul Gandhi. Without any evidence, without any substance, the Opposition in general and Mr. Rahul Gandhi in particular have been levelling senseless allegations against the Prime Minister -- including Chowkidar Chor Hai. On a couple of occasions, he was made to tender unconditional apologies as well for such baseless allegations. Yet, he refuses to learn any lesson from that event when he had to eat his own words. If India were in the grip of Emergency, most of these leaders would have been behind the bars several times over for making such allegations.

 

Yet, they move freely in the society and show the temerity to continue making false allegations against the Prime Minister or even the Defence Forces. These people go out to foreign countries and urge the politicians there to “protect democracy in India”. The overall conduct of the Opposition camp in the country has been very objectionable, to say the least, on several counts. They seem interested in giving the common people an impression that everything is amiss in India and that the common people are living a harassed life in the country. This is a brazen lie and yet the Opposition is not ashamed of making statements to that effect. It must be said definitively that the Opposition is only interested in spreading falsehood about the country and such attempts should be thwarted by the Government and the people.